Expert: Love/hate relationship between business IT and desktop virtualization

While the advantages of desktop virtualization are well-known, this doesn't mean that dealing with the technology doesn't sometimes cause headaches for IT departments, according to IT Business Edge.

Studies have demonstrated time and again that the IT world realizes the possibilities for desktop virtualization, the tech news publication said, though it also cautioned that many of those studies were sponsored by the industry. Nevertheless, the high percentage of respondents to a recent Matrix42 survey that said they wanted a unified virtual/physical desktop management product was significant, IT Business Edge reported.

Although some highly vaunted advances in the technology have been revealed to be less useful than advertised, improvements continue to be made, according to the news source. One add-on product for VMware and Citrix images allows for enhanced flexibility while taking up roughly a quarter of the storage space required for the average Windows/Office environment.

All this means, experts say, is that the decision to adopt virtualized infrastructure should not be taken lightly. As long as the full effects of the transition are considered, there's no reason to be unduly worried about desktop virtualization technology.